Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, April 30, 2007

Sprayin' me softly

Weed deathSo, I'm outside finishing up digging up my favorite weeds because it's a beautiful day, and the neighbors are outside working in their yards as well.

My weed party is then interrupted by the stench of the gasoline powered mower two houses away. That's fine, I understand, we all can't be pushing our backs out of whack with a push reel mower. Unpleasant, but I can deal.

My next door neighbor is busy pulling weeds and piling on the Miracle Gro Garden Soil into his raised beds. That's okay, at least he's growing food in his raised beds. Sure, he's not using organic methods, but it's a step, no? (And their leeks are enormous!)

I continue with my weeds (yes, it's a large project) and am interrupted again, this time by my son asking me what the neighbor is doing. I look up to see that he is spraying grass and weed killer on the cracks in his driveway not too far from me . Of course, the wind is blowing in my direction so I'm inundated by a cloud of chemicals.

Ah, another beautiful spring day!

2 comments:

April said...

Pure white vinegar, sprayed on early on a sunny day will pretty much kill anything. Try it on your weeds! It's pretty non-evasive, and will shrivel up dandelions rather quickly. Perhaps you can do a test area and then convince your neighbor to stop fumigating the 'hood?

Crunchy Chicken said...

april - I like to use white vinegar on broadleaf weeds. It sometimes takes a few applications but it makes your yard smell like a giant salad with a little viniagrette.

Another thing I do is pour boiling water on them (left over from boiling eggs or pasta or whatever). That really kills them, but it works best on cracks and sidewalks.

One of these days I'll get up the nerve to suggest an alternative. If only he spoke English, I probably would be more likely to do it :)